New book out "Vitamin D: The Sunshine Vitamin" by Zoltan Rona, MD, MSc.

From the Introduction by Dr. Rona. It is conservatively estimated by most experts that 70 percent of the population in Canada and the United States is vitamin D deficient. In my private medical practice in Toronto, I found a very similar percentage of my patients to be vitamin D deficient as well. About five years ago, when all the newspapers were filled with the latest news and research about vitamin D, I routinely started to measure the levels of vitamin D in all my patients. To my utter surprise, the majority had suboptimal levels of the vitamin, even during the summer months. I reasoned that this was because people were frightened to death about the cancer-causing dangers of too much sun exposure and the many media pronouncements about using sunscreens coupled with scary stories of vitamin D toxicity from oral supplements.

Sun phobia—a condition imposed on the population by sun-paranoid
dermatologists—sunscreens, and spending too much time indoors due to fears of aging from sun damage have all contributed to the problem of vitamin D insufficiency. One of the worst offenders in creating vitamin D deficiency is the use of commercial sunscreens, none of which have been proved to prevent skin cancer and most of which contain carcinogenic chemicals. Studies now indicate that while sunscreens may prevent sunburns, they do virtually nothing to prevent cancer and other illness.

When the June 8, 2007, front page of the Toronto Globe and Mail proclaimed the cancer-preventing benefits of vitamin D and the Canadian Cancer Society chirped in with their modest recommendation for everyone to take 1,100 IU of vitamin D daily, the natural health community may have felt vindicated. Many scientists felt hoodwinked.

This cancer-preventive property of vitamin D was no big news to world experts and researchers who have been touting the numerous benefits of the vitamin for well over a decade. The medical profession and its various antiquated societies are, unfortunately, far behind in applying scientific data to clinical health concerns. It’s a nice gesture on their part to recommend 1,100 IU of vitamin D a day to prevent cancer, but it’s far from enough. Current research indicates that the figure for cancer prevention should be closer to 10,000 IU daily. This figure is probably something that will only surface as a regular recommendation in another decade. It’s just the way the snail goes for the world of conventional medical wisdom.

But change will come. We are now seeing daily evidence of vitamin D’s promise as study after scientific study is published extolling its benefits for virtually every human disease. Vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency play a role in causing seventeen types of cancer (especially breast, prostate, and colon) as well as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, diabetes (Type I and Type II), depression (especially seasonal affective disorder), chronic pain, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, obesity, muscle weakness, muscle wasting, birth defects, and periodontal disease. Further, vitamin D has been proved to regulate over two thousand genes in the body, and this may be why so many diseases are directly influenced by its availability.
See the book.